Founding Father
by Stalker of Stories
Summary: At the age of 7, all magical children undergo a challenge to see if they are worthy of their magic. This is Harry's. Short story.
1. Chapter 1

Warnings: Starts with useless trivia about the number 7, fluff, mentions of mild child abuse and neglect, contains random crackpot theories that the author thought up in the space of maybe ten seconds.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling and associates, of whom I am not one. Information on the number seven altered from what was found on Wikipedia.

Chapter 1

Seven is the most magically significant number, and for good reason. According to the most prominent Western religions, it took seven days to create the earth – wizards had a similar belief, however it pertained instead to Atlas and his creation of the seven earthly elements (soil, water, metal, flora, fauna, magic, and life) which was changed in Greek legend to be his daughters – and the ideas of sin and virtue were each separated into seven categories, morally speaking.

In mathematics, the number seven was special due to various rules that no one other than mathematicians could make heads or tails of. Most importantly, it was a prime number, and prime numbers were always the most important numbers (expect, of course, for 42, which seven multiplied into).

In parts of the world, the numeral seven was bisected, demonstrating its uses in both the dark and the light.

There are also seven colors in the rainbow – Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet – and seven units were adopted by scientists to quantify matter, space, time, and energy. Seven is neutral in terms of bases and acids, something very important in terms of brewing potions.

So even muggles could understand the importance of the number seven, calling it a lucky number or a holy number. They even made a cycle of seven days to represent a greater cycle of time.

The wizarding world had thrice as many reasons to revere seven, and less than half as many that made any sense without intense study. There was only one that mattered at that exact moment.

Particularly, the one relating to the age of seven.

At the age of seven a young wizard's (or witch's) magic would completely flood that child's body for precisely one second. Even squibs experienced this; any child with the potential for magic would experience it. Before that one instant, it was impossible to know whether a child would be magical.

Even during that instant, and for a time after, it will remain unknown.

Magic is a fickle force, and despite its tendency to favor those of magical stock – they tended to be better adapted for it physically, and magic gravitated towards itself – if it decided that the subject was unworthy it would forsake its host and in the place of that host another compatible, nonmagical child would, no less than a month later, perhaps become magical.

Of course it wasn't _quite_ that simple. Every child had a challenge to overcome for magic to deem that child worthy, even the "selected" muggles.

James Potter would boast that his was finding his way out of a jungle while his best friend, Sirius Black, proclaimed that his was managing to survive in that wretched house his family lived in. Lily Potter nee Evans would admit that she had no idea what hers was, only that when she gave some of her birthday cake to a hungry looking boy at the park – a young Severus Snape – that she was suddenly filled with a strange energy. Snape would not speak up on the matter of his own test.

On occasion, a powerful wizard would be transported away in that single instant of magical awareness for a greater test. One such was Tom Riddle who vanished from lunch at his orphanage and appeared in a cave not far from where his orphanage was known to go on trips. He escaped the cave, climbed a cliff that would make a mountaineer edgy, and was found by the town authorities. Despite being punished for running away, Tom gained something greater that day.

It was assumed that Albus Dumbledore had a similar experience, but he refused to comment.

The most famous of such challenges was that of Merlin, and his was ongoing. Born in late 19th century Wales as Taliesin Llwys, at the age of seven he suddenly began to live backwards; he had to learn to walk backwards and talk backwards for the sake of everyone around him (1). He knew how things would end before they happened because he had already lived through them and to everyone around him he grew younger while to him they were the ones going back to the cradle. Always being transported through time, Merlin's task was one of ardor and often solitude. After all, to meet an old friend who has never met him was surmised to be the greatest challenge known to man. Likewise to hear of his own escapades and not know how he accomplished them.

There was no way to prepare for magic's test. It tested everyone in a different way, and in some cases it didn't test at all, only observed to decide whether or not it liked the host. This would be the case with Neville Longbottom, whose magic would finally accept him when he was dropped out the third story window by his uncle at the age of nine.

Harry James Potter was born on July the thirty-first, 1980 at 5:33 am. Unlike other children, there would be no parents anxiously awaiting the results of his challenge, no one to congratulate him if his magic chose to stay – it was rather unlikely that it wouldn't, only one in every ten magical children turned out to be a squib or received only a grudging acceptance from magic – or even anyone to explain what happened. Harry didn't even know that he could be a wizard, or that magic existed.

He slept soundly, unaware in his cupboard. It was 5:30 am.

In a castle in Scotland, an old man of 143 years was drinking tea with a woman of 78. It seemed like a strange time to be drinking tea, and both of them still in their bed things, but far stranger things had happened at Hogwarts.

"He won't be prepared for what is to happen," the woman sniped. She was Minerva McGonagall, a professor of Transfiguration, a master of her art. "No matter how hard Petunia Dursley tries to explain, she can't –"

"Minerva, there is nothing to worry about," the elderly man, Albus Dumbledore, appeased. He was the Headmaster of Hogwarts and once taught Minerva's subject. "Harry will not lose his magic."

"Albus, I realize you have your theories about magic thinking him worthy for surviving the curse," and she did, because he had gone on about how love and magic had saved the boy, marked him for greatness and would never desert him, but... "If he's as powerful as I have been led to believe, his test will be nigh insurmountable! I can only hope he doesn't end up like Merlin." She had never met Merlin, he had turned back before she was born, but Albus had met him not long before taking up an apprenticeship with Nicholas Flamel and knew some degree of the tragedy there.

"I would not worry," the Headmaster smiled placatingly. "I'm sure Harry will do just fine. When a strong wizard is tested, it is difficult, but nothing he cannot overcome. It is the same with all tests; difficult, but never impossible."

Minerva begged to differ but held her tongue and simply glared at the man as she sipped her tea.

The hands on the clock clicked to 5:32 am.

The Dursley household was silent; no one was due to wake for an hour yet. Petunia and Vernon would wake first, and while Vernon showered Petunia would wake Harry. Dudley, of course, could sleep in as late as he wished because it was summer. As usual, a special birthday surprise was planned for Harry.

Petunia was going to give him Dudley's old shoes.

Had Harry known what a house elf was, he might have wished he was one so that this gift would free him from his family. However, he slept fitfully and obliviously in his cupboard. He always slept poorly, shallowly, so that he wouldn't sleep in and get in trouble. He always slept worse on nights where he hadn't eaten; last time he ate was dinner on the twenty-ninth, and his stomach rebelled.

However, as the clock in the parlor changed to say 5:33, he did not wake during that one second in which his magic was completely and totally unlocked. It saturated his skin, the air, and he was oblivious.

At the end of that second, Harry's eyes peeked open, then closed, not understanding the difference between the darkness of his cupboard and the darkness of where he had arrived. Registering only that it was still dark and that his aunt had not come for him yet, he drifted immediately back to sleep.

It was not for two hours that Harry would be awoken. He heard soft footsteps on a hard floor – a whisper of cloth-soled slippers like the ones Aunt Petunia favored – and was immediately waking. He lamented that his blanket had fallen off in the night, but realized suddenly that he was not in his camp-cot that served as a bed. But he can't have slept on the floor of his cupboard as there was no room...

This realization all occurred before he opened his eyes, which resulted in momentary blindness as _natural light_ shot him straight in the face. He wasn't in his cupboard.

Harry scrambled to his feet, feeling stone, somehow, beneath his feet. If Aunt Petunia caught him sleeping in the hall or, as he suspected from the ground's texture, the drive –

But his eyes focused, if just a little since he didn't have his glasses on, and he noticed that everything around him was the same sharp gray color. The ground and walls were made from the same texture – large stone bricks put together, he could tell by the fuzzy shadows between them – to his eyes, and a bit further forward he could see the ceiling was the same gray color. There was yellow-red-orange dancing on the walls at intervals. Lights? Except they flickered and electric lights didn't do that.

And then, of course, there was the figure approaching him. He could tell it was a woman because men weren't curvy like that, even from a distance. He suppose she must have been wearing a dress, since her entire body was black as coal, leaving a few peach-colored blobs that must have been her hands and neck. Her hair was brown, but Harry really couldn't tell anymore.

Nor did he want to really. He was somewhere, somewhere he shouldn't be, and he scampered to one of the walls, pushing himself up against it in an effort to go unnoticed. If he stayed out of the way, his uncle usually ignored him, as would his aunt sometimes, so maybe this lady would too?

He didn't consider asking her for help. Adults didn't help, nor did children. Maybe they would help good kids, but not gawky, geeky Harry-the-fairy.

The woman had obviously seen him – she called something out in a low, no-nonsense sort of voice, but Harry didn't understand the words – because she had changed her direction slightly and was making a bee-line for him, skirts raised ever-so-slightly to make the journey easier. Harry kept his eyes on the ground, never letting them wander any higher than an inch or two which was just enough to see the shiny, golden tops of the ballerina-like slippers.

She spoke again, and Harry didn't understand; he withdrew a bit more, waiting for her to get angry at him for not replying. Calloused fingertips touched his chin suddenly, before his blurry eyes even registered that a hand had darted forward, and he flinched at the touch. Even his aunt's hands, the few times they had deigned touch him, were soft, but this woman's were rough and despite the thinness reminded him more of his uncle's touch.

The hand retracted momentarily, something else was said, and then the hand reappeared, slower so that he saw it. Two fingertips touched the very tip of his chin and raised up upwards, slowly, to look the woman in the eye.

Harry stood stalk still, terrified. Up close he could tell the woman had curly brown hair and a lean, handsome face. Her lips were full, cheeks high and thin, jaw strong, and her hair carefully braided into an intricate plait that Harry couldn't make out very well. Amber eyes stared into his before a pleased smile came across her face. She stood to her full height, which was shorter than Aunt Petunia (who was taller than any woman Harry had met), and released his chin.

Then the end of a stick was pressed to the bridge of his nose and Harry slept.

* * *

"- _Else_ could I do? The poor child looked on the verge of panic, and his magic is only bubbling under the surface." The voice was softer now, but Harry recognized it as the gibberish-lady in the black dress. On reflex, he had flinched, the jolt bringing him into waking. She said the _M_ word! Not even Harry's teachers said that word after Uncle Vernon laid into them.

This was what Harry heard as he jerked into waking. He was on something soft, a bed softer than Dudley's (Harry only knew this because he was the one to make the older boy's bed), and a rough blanket was laid overtop of him. Even as his eyes flew open and he registered the white fabric – something that generally didn't exist in the Dursley household for fear of Dudley spilling on it, though the stated reason was different – he wondered how much trouble he was in.

"You think he's been sent by magic," this voice was male, quiet and soft, but low. Harry shifted on the mattress, soft as feathers, and started sliding off of it. "What challenge is here to face? It's summer; there are no older children, only the castle. Is he perhaps muggleborn? His task might be to accept the magic within him."

"Most assuredly not!" A higher voice, airy and feminine, it reminded Harry of Mrs Number Two's voice as she told her children to keep away from "that Potter scamp". She sounded... not angry. What was the word his teacher used? Affronted? Scandalized? Horrified? Maybe. "No, most certainly not. Magic takes too well to him, it coddles him really, like how it treats father. The child is of magical blood, though by his strange garb he must be foreign, and a peasant I would wager."

"I wonder where he _is_ from? He did not understand me in the hall – I fed him a translation potion on the way here of course – so it is unlikely he is from the Isles. I tried all the local tongues, and even latin," the first woman again, sounding annoyed. "Perhaps his task is to go home?"

"With the power within him? That would be _far_ too simple," the second woman said this in a tone Harry didn't recognize. It wasn't any sort of anger or humor, so something in between. "It's more likely –"

"Be that as it may," the man intruded, voice simmering with something dangerous that made Harry flinch even as he scooted under the frame of the bed, "it is his own to overcome. If, as you say Rowena, magic loves him as it does father and he is not in fact living backwards, then I should not worry of him becoming a squib. Magic coddles the powerful."

"I... Salazar, I didn't mean –" Distress.

"What you did or did not mean is irrelevant, Sister," the man sighed. "Helga, how much longer will your spell last?"

"Only a few more minutes, if that," the first woman sighed. "If only Godric were here. Rowena and I are not very good at healing, and you..." Apologetic, but not sincerely. Yet it also wasn't mocking like the time a teacher had forced Dudley to apologize for stealing Harry's classroom snack – that, of course, was before the school learned not to put Harry and Dudley in the same class. "Well, suffice to say he should be up and about soon enough, and we can get some food in him. He was asleep when I entered the Entrance Hall, and he seemed rather small for seven when I brought him up."

"Very well," the man affirmed. "As I have already broken my fast, I will be in the greenhouses if I am needed. As always, it is a pleasure, my sisters." Sharp steps, like the slap of bare feet but different, sounded as the man apparently retreated.

The curtains around the bed Harry had been placed in opened slowly, and he saw the same ballerina-like slippers the woman from when he first woke had been wearing. There was a "hmm" noise that sounded almost amused, and a few words Harry didn't understand. He was careful to keep all limbs out of view of the sides of the bed, but this apparently was not enough.

The bed lifted straight up, and Harry panicked, skittering across the floor. How had she done that? Not even Uncle Vernon could lift a bed straight up; he only lifted one end if he could be bothered to do it in the first place! Was there some sort of pulley? Or maybe a weird machine. But why would they do that anyway?

Having rushed out of the curtains, they tore off the metal frame and attached to him as he pelted forward. Unfortunately, Harry was short for a freshly seven year old boy, looking instead freshly six or perhaps in the middle of being five. Even if he _had_ been the regular size of a boy his age, he wouldn't have been able to avoid tripping on all the cloth that clung to him. He tumbled and braced himself to encounter more of the hard stone flooring that he had been kneeling on mere seconds before –

And he didn't. He didn't feel _anything_ under him, nothing at all. It was like he was still falling, but he knew he wasn't because there was no rush, no pull to the ground (he thought it was called gravy or something of that sort). It was like fl- no, he couldn't even _think_ the word after the last time his uncle had yelled at him for spouting nonsense about flying horses.

All, the same, when he opened his eyes he saw the ground below him, staying stationary as though he had no reason not to float above it. Then he saw the black train of the handsome woman's dress and knew he had been caught.

"I think your estimation was off, Helga dear," the higher voice giggled and another skirt bottom, this one a deep blue, entered his field of vision. "He must have heard a good half of our conversation with Salazar. Oh _do_ let him down, the poor boy is trembling."

"A bit of healthy fear is good for children." And yet Harry felt and saw himself descending. As soon as the ground was within reach, he scrambled to touch it. "I always loved it when mother hovered me. Perhaps the boy is afraid of heights?" She sounded amused. Harry was able to put weight on his hands and feet now and scrambled away from the women.

They both quieted, stifling laughter in the case of the higher pitched woman, and Harry didn't hear them pursuing him as he made his way to a bed along the opposite wall, using it to stand again. The woman in the black dress was just as indefinite as before, her blurred features less discernible than they had been in the instant before he had fallen asleep.

The woman in the blue dress was taller than the other, taller even than Aunt Petunia, Harry realized. Her hair was a sort of white-blond color, and it looked straight to him, but his view of things was always different from others so it might have been wavy or curly, too. Her skin was also paler than that of the other woman, bordering on pasty. She cut a dangerously thin figure, and even from three meters away Harry could tell she had soft, sharp features, pretty features, rather than the handsome woman beside her or the horse-like Petunia.

She was beautiful, like Harry sometimes liked to pretend his mother was. And she glowed, though that was likely a trick of the light.

"He's simply adorable," the blonde whispered just loud enough for Harry to hear. "And his eyes – just like Salazar's, don't you think?"

"Yes, I noticed before," said the handsome woman. "If I didn't know Salazar didn't participate in the Samhain rituals... well. Come along boy, breakfast will be ready by now, I should think." She turned about and was headed for a gaping square hole that Harry imagined must have been a doorway. The blonde did not follow, instead crouching lower, to his level, and stretching out one thin hand that was attached to a bony wrist.

Harry didn't move.

"It's rude, you know, to not introduce yourself to a lady," she giggled slightly to herself, a sound like bells. "It is a lesson of etiquette that your parents should have taught you, don't you think?"

On reflex, Harry parroted what he had been told, "My parents died in a collision, because my father was drunk." Seeing the stunned look on the woman's face, he looked down, blushing. He wasn't to speak to strangers, especially not the strangely dressed ones. Still, she had said he was being _rude_, which the Dursleys always chided him for. "I'm Harry."

"I... see, young Harry," her hand fell a moment, before the pink line Harry knew to be her mouth curled into what must have been a smile. "I am Rowena Ravenclaw. My sister and I would like you to join us for breakfast. When Helga found you this morning, she was on her way to the Great Hall to dine, and I'm afraid it has been near on to an hour since then. Would you come along?"

Instead of replying in the expected affirmative – even Harry expected such a reply as he remembered he hadn't eaten the day before – the child asked, "Where am I?" He didn't move toward her so much as a centimeter.

"I forgot to mention that, didn't I?" the woman giggled. "You are at Hogwarts Castle; the land belongs to my mother, or it did before she gave it to me. Now it belongs to my brothers, Helga, and me. Now come along or the food might be cold when we get there."

Despite wanting to ask what she meant by _castle_ – for Harry had no business being in a castle and had no reason to believe the claim other than the stones that seemed to make up the floors and walls – Harry nodded and stepped forward. He did not take the proffered hand, knowing from experience that it wouldn't end well; once, his aunt had taken his hand while crossing the street and practically wrenched his arm from its socket.

While Harry followed the lady, he was surprised to find it really _was_ a castle. Then again, both ladies seemed to come straight from one of the books about princesses that the girls at Harry's school liked to read. He watched curiously as the fancy televisions that were placed on the wall at intervals almost seemed to _react_. The images themselves were strange, looking painted despite moving, but the castle was even stranger.

The passed through the same hallway three times, but each time the carpet was a different color, and it was on a different floor. Harry was positive that one of the staircases two floors above him had _moved_, and a few times they had gone up a flight of stairs rather than down only to circle about and descend down the same staircase they had used to get onto the floor they had come up from in the first place.

He was silent the entire way as the lady filled the quiet with chatter, mostly about her family. She was the baby of the family and didn't know her siblings very well until a few years ago. She had two elder brothers, twins named Godric and Salazar, and the other lady, Helga, was her big sister, the oldest of them all. They'd all grown up separately, having the same father but different mothers, but they had come together with the dream to create a school of magic.

She didn't notice the way Harry's flinched whenever she said that word. Didn't she know it was a bad word? A dangerous word for something that didn't exist? But Rowena continued talking, telling him about the castle and the classes taught there. She taught students about the stars in the sky and their relevance to magic, as well as the magic in letters and numbers. Helga taught a sort of cooking class called potions, a class on how to turn one thing into another, and history. Godric taught students to defend themselves and heal, which went hand and hand, and he also taught something called charms, though Harry didn't know how bracelets had anything to do with anything.

"And Salazar... he's a little touchy," Rowena giggled to herself, "but he's very nice once you get past his shell. He teaches herbology – that is, the study of plants – and mythozoology – the study of magical animals. Very few students are literate when they arrive because of the church, so he also teaches them to read and write. He's patient in his own way. He yells at people easily, but he'll keep helping them – not at all like Godric. Godric's temper is hard to fire up, but when he gets mad at someone he won't help them with anything for months. He's stubborn, really."

At this time, they reached the place where Harry had woken up, a smaller hallway leading to a very large chamber the size of the dance halls on the telly. Rowena led him down a great staircase and toward a very tall set of doors that were already open. He marveled at the even larger room that lay within, the roof obviously made of glass since he could see the sky through it. There was one table in the middle, a small one with four chairs, and the lady in the black dress, Helga, was already seated and speaking to what seemed to be a very small person. The person bowed to her - it can't have been higher up than Harry's waist, which was a testament to how short it really was - and disappeared with a very sudden _CRACK_.

The child jumped and his hand clutched at Rowena's skirt reflexively before he realized what he'd done. He would iron the dress to make up for it.

"Let's have breakfast, Harry. And welcome to Hogwarts." She smiled and took the hand that had clutched her skirt, leading Harry to the table.

**Author's Note: This was supposed to be just a one-shot, but... well, just getting to breakfast took 5000 words, so... this'll be chaptered. And I'm considering a sequel, because everone will hate me for the end. We'll see. The idea struck me while I was getting some juice while in the middle of reading a Harry-goes-back-to-the-Founder's-Era fic. And I **_**liked**_** it. (Ironically, the first parts of the idea were actually the Title and Summary, which I usually can never think of.)**

**The "all the Founders are siblings" idea is from my sophomore year in high school and really makes more sense if you have read Marion Zimmer-Bradley's version of the Arthur legend, however it also meshes with White's version. Essentially, the Merlin fathered the siblings at Samain (the traditional Celtic holiday occurring on what is now All Saint's Day) over the course of 3 years, and they were raised by their mothers (considering Merlin lives backwards, it'd be awkward to raise children he had not yet fathered... must make sex awkward... ew) except Salazar who was raised in Avalon, and they came together to make a greater school of magic. Helga is the oldest, then the twins Godric and Salazar (with Salazar being the younger), and Rowena is the youngest. The only times they met as children (prior to Rowena becoming 16) were at various solstice events – Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasa, and Samain – when the mothers would all migrate back to Avalon.**

(1) Couldn't resist. I always liked the Once and Future King since I was a kid; in it, Merlin lives backwards and there is evidence that suggests he was born in the near-modern era (after he says "Blow me to Bermuda" and is literally blown there, he tells his magic to replace his hat and it gives him one from the 17 or 1800s, I can't quite remember. I haven't read that book in over 4 years...). The name Taliesin is from Lady of Avalon, though Merlin is a title passed down through the generations. Llwys is an early form of Llewis or Lewis (very difficult to pronounce those double-Ls) though it is still used some.


	2. Chapter 2

Warnings: Starts with useless trivia about the number 7, fluff, mentions of mild child abuse and neglect, contains random crackpot theories that the author thought up in the space of maybe ten seconds.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling and associates, of whom I am not one. Information on the number seven altered from what was found on Wikipedia.

Chapter 2

Harry kept quiet through the meal. He was very hesitant to grab any food, even though Rowena was nice, he knew he couldn't grab any food. Certainly not after seeing the little person who _vanished_ in a sound that was similar to gunfire from the telly.

Rowena had just smiled at him, uncomprehending, and filled a plate for him while she conversed with her older sister.

Harry simply kept to himself, thanking the women for feeding him and ate what he could. He remembered a lesson that his class had had about Napoleon, and how it wasn't starvation that killed most of them after trying to take over Russia, but how they had gorged themselves afterwards. His teacher had explained that if people didn't eat much for a long time, their stomachs shrank and if they ate the same amount as a normal person they could die because there would be so much food it would fill their... Harry couldn't think of the word. The tubey-thing that connected the mouth and stomach. And then they wouldn't be able to breathe.

Well, Harry knew he wasn't _that_ bad off; the Dursleys fed him at least every other day, and sometimes they fed him as much as Aunt Petunia ate, which Harry knew was still less than normal people. But Harry also knew than when he ate as much as his aunt did, he would sometimes feel a little ill. Once, on a field trip, his class had a catered lunch and the teacher got mad when he didn't eat much, so he ate the rest and _did_ get sick. His aunt had claimed he was allergic to tomatoes; the teacher was fired and Harry spent the weekend in his cupboard.

Either way, Harry knew he couldn't eat a lot, but he also knew that mothering types, which he suspected Rowena to be, would certainly insist he ate more than he normally would.

And so he ate, slowly, and quietly, on the edge of his seat, ready to bolt if need be. He didn't know where he was other than that it was a castle, but there were castles all over the country. The ones from the telly hadn't been as big as this one, he was certain, and most of them had been falling to bits, but...

Harry didn't dwell on it long. He was seven today, and he needed to get home.

"It's your seventh birthday today, isn't it, Boy?" Helga asked when she had completed her morning meal. Harry stiffened in his seat and looked up at her. She was rather gruff, different from most ladies he had met because she didn't talk to him like adults did to children. She didn't even act like other children's mothers did when they asked Harry where his parents were (the correct response, he had learned some years ago, was not "dead", even if it was the truth).

Before Harry could reply, however, Rowena spoke. "Harry. His name is Harry. Really Helga, you're a teacher, you should familiarize yourself with the names of students."

"He isn't a student," Helga replied evenly. "He's too young yet, and it is summer. Until Lughnasa, there is no such thing as a _student_." She crinkled her nose at the word, as if students were horrid things. Maybe they were. Harry wasn't a teacher, but he knew a lot of classmates could drive his teachers crazy.

"He will be one day I expect," Rowena rebuffed her sister. "And if you don't learn his name, how will the poor boy feel?"

"Fine," Harry was under the distinct impression that Helga rolled her eyes, but couldn't see her clearly enough to tell. She directed her attention to Harry. "Today is your seventh birthday, right, _Harry_?"

Rather cowed by the earlier conversation, Harry only nodded. He didn't dare field his voice where these two women had spoken.

"And I expect you're as prepared for your ordeal as you can be?" she sounded bored already. Harry had no idea what she was talking about and nodded again. What else was he supposed to do? "What do you want to do, then?"

And Harry stared at the black clothed woman. What did he... want to do? He couldn't recall ever being asked that question. Again flummoxed, the child only shrugged and a edged a little closer to out of his chair.

"Now really Helga, the boy is hardly at the age where one leaves his mother's skirts, never mind that children that age don't know what they want," Rowena sighed. "You poor woman, sometimes I wonder if you ever were a child at all!"

Helga, Harry discovered, had the same ability to change color that Uncle Vernon did. Her face was purple.

After that, it was a screaming match. Harry got off the chair entirely and cowered behind it as the sisters yelled at one another; Helga was calling Rowena words like "naive" and "strumpet" and some of the words that Aunt Petunia had asked when Harry had been dumb enough to ask about his mother. Rowena called her sister a "horrible witch" and an "old maid" which made Helga extra angry and yell that it wasn't her fault that she couldn't have children and if Rowena liked children so much maybe she should spend time with her husband instead of at the school.

Rowena seemed to agree and left.

Helga stormed out not long after, saying words that Harry was certain he wasn't supposed to repeat.

And then Harry was alone in the very big room in which he had been eating breakfast with the two ladies only a few minutes past. Ever so slowly, he removed himself from where he had been hiding behind the chair. The doors were open wide, and neither woman was visible; Harry wondered if they had forgotten he was there.

If they had, all the better. The sooner he got home, the less trouble he would be in.

Cautiously, the child made his way to the giant doors. He peeked around them and concluded from the lack of black or blue ladies that the way was clear. An even bigger door than the one to the big dining room was slightly ajar, morning sunlight filtering in cheerily. Harry made a run for it and slipped outside.

What he saw was discouraging.

A great green valley spread before him... discounting the great cliff, that is. There was a good stretch between the door and the cliff, but there was a cliff all the same. A dirt road – if it could be called that, as it was more of a deer path – lead down the side of the cliff and leveled out a long way away, next to a large lake. After that it was just grass, lake, mountains, and a rather eerie forest that Harry wanted to steer clear of.

He was far away from Surrey, that was certain. Or he felt he was. Something told him that it would take a while to get home. Unless he did... something. What, the young boy did not know.

To be entirely fair, he never would, but Harry didn't need to know that.

What he did know was that he had to get away from this castle. Maybe he could find a town, and a map? Surely people this far out didn't know about freaky, delinquent, Harry the fairy? And they might help... sure, his family would punish him for it, but the important thing was to return home.

So he ran.

* * *

Salazar leaned away from the Roman Rose he had been replanting in its special corral. He had learned the hard way precisely why they were named for the Romans – the Roses would rally behind the strongest rose and in a great push they would take over more and more territory from other plants.

At least the roses didn't actually kill off the other plants. They were very tolerant of other plants, so long as those plants saw it their way and went along peacefully with the edicts of the Emperor Rose.

That did not mean that Salazar was going to let the little bastards get away with it.

He had taken them down by the time they had made their way to the samples he had picked up recently from the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – he could only thank the powers that be that such powerful wards had protected them – and was now setting very strict guidelines.

The flowers had named him as the new Emperor Rose.

"You will not invade neighboring flowerbeds without my express permission," Salazar reprimanded, giving the Roses his most venomous glare. They seemed to get the idea and bent their stems, looking as cowed as flowers could.

Satisfied that they would obey – at least until a rose decided to challenge him and he had to introduce _that_ one to his lantern, too – Salazar stood and brushed the loam from the knees of his pale gray robes. Unlike his sisters, he actually spent time outside and knew better than to wear dark colors in the sun. His summer robes were all lightly colored, and despite it being some time yet before midday, he was already feeling over warm in the greenhouse.

A walk by the lake sounded heavenly.

Certain that his robe had been freed of as much dirt as possible – the elves could get it out later anyway – he exited the greenhouse, putting his feet back in his leather-soled boots when he reached the door. Being barefoot was more comfortable, but outside of his greenhouses he could never be certain what he might step on.

As was proven when several time he could feel a rock through his boot. Yes, it was best that he wore boots outside his greenhouse, no matter how much he hated the confinement of his feet.

At the age of twenty three, Salazar was different from his siblings, he felt. Rowena was twenty three as well now, but Salazar and Godric would be twenty four before Lughnasa. Helga would turn twenty five a month later.

Salazar's interests differed greatly from that of his siblings, perhaps because of his upbringing, or... other factors. Rowena loved books and imagined herself like one of the good fairies from the old tales, a matron and saint all in one to whom all children would gravitate. It was ridiculous of course; Rowena was as much a harpy as any other woman, and grew quickly bored with many things, including her own husband in Londinium. For all she claimed to love children, Salazar knew she had never spent a night with her husband.

Helga neither liked nor disliked children, just as she neither liked nor disliked most things. She felt children needed a firm hand to keep them in line, and practiced this with the students of her house, teaching that hard work was more valuable than natural ability. Salazar somewhat agreed, but his elder sister had an overbearing nature, and flew into a rage at the slightest thing. Sometimes at nothing at all. (1) All her fervor was for effort and making things happen, making them change.

Then there was Godric. Looking at them, Salazar knew, they were like two sides of a coin. Godric had pale skin, prone to burning, like their father, and his buff colored hair was coarse like their mother's. He thought battle was the ultimate form of greatness, that it was might which made right; their father had informed Godric that his great grandson would feel precisely the opposite and make things change. (2) He was a vicious man, but prone to mirth and drink and grand acts the likes of which would kill most anyone else.

Precisely opposite of how Salazar viewed himself, really. Salazar was quiet, but the times when he was vocal stood out so much that many did not realize how quiet he was. His skin held a healthy tan from his outdoor lessons, and did not seem pale from his jet black hair. At least, that was how he felt. Battles, he told his students, are easiest won through lack of them. To end a battle before it begins is a great skill.

Godric called him a coward.

As he had done many a time before, Salazar assured himself that cowardice was nothing to be ashamed of. He had to make up for what he lacked somehow. So he did.

The castle grounds was a soothing place to Salazar, perhaps because it was where the majority of his lessons took place. Whether in rain, sun, or snow, it was beautiful; he had been very grateful when Rowena suggested the castle for their use. At first, he was skeptical – most magical children, whether raised from magic or from muggles – were raised as peasants and would take too long to adjust to the grandeur of a castle. Even children from Avalon, such as Salazar himself, were unaccustomed to it, having been raised on the bare minimum.

Yet here they were, two years since the founding of the school, with the numbers of students ever growing. From ten, they had grown to thirty. This year it was expected to reach fifty students. He was looking forward to it, though it would be more difficult to divvy up the education.

But more students meant more lessons, which meant less time to brood. That was good.

Rounding the bend of the greatest cliff, near the intersection of the footpath to the lake and the path to the castle, Salazar was struck by something. Rather literally, unfortunately. A small body, moving quite fast all things considered, smashed into his legs and sent them both toppling to the ground. Salazar did not lament the dirtying of his robes, but rather the damage to his kneecaps.

Hitting the ground so suddenly did him no great pain, but the extra weight on his legs made his knees protest. No doubt there would be a bruise of some sort.

Salazar was quick to stand again, and observed the small, scrambling figure before him. The resemblance really was uncanny, as his sister had said, though he could see the differences too. The boy was certainly no clone of himself from childhood; he was more gangly, less elegant, with larger eyes shaped more reminiscent of the East than shapes found in Britain, though the coloration was all Salazar's. The hair was too messy – though Salazar's was always worn long as befitted his station as a son of the Merlin, so perhaps his was messy also – and a different shade of black.

Still, Salazar saw the similarities, and he wondered.

"I would think you were yet held up by Rowena, young sir," Salazar greeted when the child had righted himself. The boy looked petrified, like a child waiting for a beating. So he had done something he ought not... perhaps he found Rowena overwhelming or some such. Many did before she grew bored.

The child bit his lip, not answering. His eyes were unfocussed; still jarred from the impact, perhaps?

"I was about to take a walk around the lake," Salazar continued, unheeding of the boy's nerves. "Would you care to join me?" The child quit his worrying and slowly nodded, a resigned motion, cautious. He was wary of those he had not met... good. In a few years, perhaps he should attend Hogwarts and become one of Salazar's students.

They walked in silence as the man contemplated how best to deal with the child. He was neither especially bad nor especially good with them. All children of Avalon grew together in the dormitory, so he was not inexperienced, but he had not been like Godric either, going out of his way to make contact with every living thing. No, certainly not like Godric.

"What is your name?" he asked finally upon reaching the lake.

The quiet reply had to be repeated once before Salazar could make out the voice against the wind. "Harry, Harry Potter" he was then. While the first name was foreign to Salazar's ears, the latter was not. The child came then from a family of pottery craftsmen.

"And today, I expect, is your seventh birthday," he did not await a reply, knowing the answer. "An auspicious day, and for it I wish you well, a courtesy I am certain one or both of my fair sister's forgot to extend. Do forgive them their rudeness; they do not mean anything by it." Salazar recalled hating it when he was talked down to by the ladies and men at Avalon, worse when it was his father who hardly knew he had sired a child at all. Perhaps some children did not notice, but Salazar tried to treat children somewhat better than others did. "Are you aware of what brought you to Hogwarts?"

Unlike Rowena's insistence, Salazar did not expect Harry to know anything. Blood did not make magic, not always. Whether the blood was pure or not made no difference to magic after all, simply that it liked the child in question. Being coddled by it did not mean the boy was not born of muggle flesh.

One need only look at Salazar to see the worth of _blood_ to magic.

As such, he was only half surprised when Harry shook his head, confusion plainly visible. So, the child was either raised by or born to muggles. His costume suggested a very poor family as well, though the material was one Salazar was unfamiliar with simply looking upon it. How strange.

"I take it you know little of magic," Salazar sighed quietly, but stopped when he saw the child actually _wince_ at his words. "What is wrong?"

"You said the 'm' word," the voice was tiny, frightened. Brilliant green eyes darted to and fro, searching for... something. "You shouldn't say that word. Uncle Vernon doesn't like it, says people shouldn't talk about freaky nonsense that doesn't exist." Bare feet shuffled along the dirt road, avoiding stones in the path with practiced ease. It was not uncommon for children to go without shoes, or most adults for that matter given the expense of boots, but looking at those small feet Salazar could tell that the child was accustomed to them.

How... strange. The child was a conundrum. 'Non-magical', apparently peasants... perhaps he was of close relation to a cobbler? That could explain it. Perhaps this 'uncle Vernon', though that name was even stranger than "Harry".

"I understand now," Salazar nodded. Most muggles feared magic, whether they truly understood its existence or not. Seventy percent of muggle-born children were killed or indoctrinated to hate themselves. The church was a great part of this. "When you were in the castle, one of my sisters must have used magic on or around you? Perhaps a spell to create some water? Or in the halls, you must have seen a portrait or three."

Harry's brow furrowed. "You mean the fancy tellies?"

"Tellies" was not a part of Salazar's vocabulary, and it was not something he had ever heard. Perhaps it was an untranslatable word used in the child's country of origin? Helga had mentioned him speaking what might as well have been Gibberish for all she could understand it (Salazar could understand Gibberish, but Helga had never been very good with languages).

After a moment, Salazar thought it best to reply with a simple "yes," before continuing on. "Those... tellies are able to move because of magic, giving them personalities and intellect similar to that of a genuine human. Rowena has been tampering with a spell to make a portrait containing a witch or wizard's memories as well, though thus far she is still experimenting on owls to make sure the spell does not..." he paused. It was best not to mention that his sister was exploding owls on her off time to a child. "To ensure it works."

"Oh..." the scruffy-headed child shuffled his feet. "So... m-magic is real?" He looked about again, apparently concerned at his use of "the m word" as he had called it.

"Very much so," Salazar responded evenly. "Perhaps Rowena or Helga will show you when we return to the castle."

"Oh..." the child repeated. He fidgeted as they walked. "That is... Ms Rowena and Ms Helga left before I came outside. They were yelling a lot." There was some fear there. Salazar sighed internally; what a wonderful way to greet the boy! Having one of their infamous shouting matches over breakfast, no doubt. At least during the school year they managed to not do so around the students, but they had apparently forgotten themselves from the lack of young people running about.

Though, to be fair, one of the students was older than Helga, a witch who never received an apprenticeship and sought education while her children attended the school as well.

Still, screaming in front of Harry during his trial...

"Could you show me?" Salazar snapped out of his thoughts at the boy's words. It probably took the meek child a lot of courage to speak up like that. He had the air of a child oft bullied by his peers, which added to the theory of peasant.

"I cannot... but perhaps you would join me in the greenhouse? Many of the plants there are unique to magical gardeners," Salazar suggested. He did not mind the admissionl he had had sixteen years to grow accustomed to himself, after all, and being a squib did not inhibit him as it might others. Especially not after he had met the girl magic chose in his stead. That had been long ago, when she was brought for training in Avalon, but he thought she recognized him as the original candidate. Or not.

Harry agreed, warily, and Salazar led him the rest of the way around the lake in silence to visit the greenhouses. Perhaps a visit with the Dancing Daisies, Laughing Lilies, and Tussling Tulips would be the easiest welcome.

**Author's Note: I... was really not expecting this much of a response. I haven't written Harry Potter (non-crossover) fanfiction in a while. And yet between posting the first chapter right before bed and waking up the next morning, my inbox had more than a page for alert and favorite alerts ^^" Um... so I'm glad you guys like it?**

**Considering that Founding Father was meant to be a one-shot, I hadn't budgeted my time for writing it... but now Finals are over at least. I still have stuff to write for people's birthdays (thus why I'm updating now instead of last weekend or the one before, 'cause I wrote one-shots for my friends plus exams), but except for one those can wait a month or more :) More than enough time to finish this story if I remember to actually write it.**

**Also? I was pretty amused because The Metronome Maven figured out that Salazar is a squib just from the little clues in chapter one. Good to know I can do foreshadowing properly.**

(1) This is supposed to be hinting that she's bipolar, but I can't exactly say it 'cause bipolar disorder was unknown back then.

(2) This great-grandson being Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther Pendragon, son of Dria Gryffindor, daughter of Godric Gryffindor.


	3. Chapter 3

Warnings: Starts with useless trivia about the number 7, fluff, mentions of mild child abuse and neglect, contains random crackpot theories that the author thought up in the space of maybe ten seconds.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling and associates, of whom I am not one. Information on the number seven altered from what was found on Wikipedia.

Chapter 3

It was not unenjoyable, Harry thought, to garden these sorts of plants. He often dealt with his aunt's roses and pulled weeds from the flowerbeds, but he had never seen anything like _these_ flowers. His aunt stressed that plants could not move and had no purpose other than to be eaten or to look pretty (his uncle had commented with "or both" and looked at his wife with a look the child didn't understand). Those that served neither purpose were to be destroyed so more normal plants could exist and normal people could live in normal houses with normal gardens in normal neighborhoods.

There had been some muttering about lilies, but Harry thought the lilies in Mrs Number 7's garden were pretty so he didn't understand what his aunt was talking about.

And here, here there were plants that were neither beautiful nor edible and, according to the grey-clad man, Salazar, were useful. One plant served the same purpose as a guard dog, another _made_ water rather than using it up. Still more ate bugs, attracted bees for pollination, and repelled bugs that would try to eat the plants. There were flowers that fought each other, flowers that sang (they weren't particularly pretty, and Harry didn't understand the songs, but Salazar told him they were singing things he shouldn't repeat because it was 'mating season'). There was even an ivy that played fetch!

It was crazy and impossible, from everything Harry had learned in school up to this point, but Petunia and Vernon always said "I'll believe it when I see it" and Harry _could_ see it (albeit blurrily). They said magic wasn't real, and yet Salazar said it was. And he had proof that _he_ was right and _they_ were wrong.

In the back of his mind, Harry hoped that this meant they were wrong about other things too.

By the time they had toured the safe areas, Harry felt like he did the time in year one when his teacher gave him a cookie; this was before the Dursleys told the school that Harry had ADHD (not that he knew what that was) and that sugar messed with his medication. He was wide-eyed, grinning, and not the least bit concerned with the repercussions of not heading straight home like he had intended. The simply absorbed everything around him, and wished he could be a part of it.

Then Salazar had asked his assistance in trimming back one of the plants he had just noticed was creeping up on another during their tour. Feeling anxious, and no doubt a little rebellious, at the idea of helping in something that was so _abnormal_… Harry couldn't refuse.

Gardening "magic" plants was the same as gardening normal plants, but Harry thought it was better than when his aunt would keep telling him to hurry and that if he wasn't done by noon that he wouldn't get any lunch. And, according to Salazar, the garden was secured in stone, turned transparent, so Harry wouldn't end up getting a sunburn.

Even acknowledging that magic was real – and it was, he decided, because these plants were not normal – Harry wondered at what Salazar had said to him. About Harry having magic, and a test.

He didn't understand what the test was supposed to be, but he didn't want to have to take any tests. If he just found out about magic, how could he be tested? It wasn't like reading and maths, which he studied in school, because Salazar explained that magic was inexplicable and uncontrollable and that wizards could really only _ask_ it to help them. Magic was also very easily convinced apparently, so it would be very rare that a spell would fail on a wizard who was competent in its art.

Or something like that. Harry didn't really understand, which made him more worried about failing the test.

Then again, if he couldn't study for it and couldn't learn it, he shouldn't bother worrying. His magic would leave him, and then he would be Harry the fairy once again. There was nothing to be done.

After a time, Salazar suggested that they head in for lunch… well, he didn't say that, but Harry knew it was what he meant. Harry dusted off the knees of his pajama pants – several sizes too large and held up by an old elastic band tied around his waist – and straightened the too-big t-shirt. Being told what to do... yes, he could handle that.

When they arrived in what Salazar called "the Great Hall", the fourth denizen of the castle was waiting for them. Or, to be more precise, for Salazar. He was tall with light blondish-brown hair, and had a rather impressive mustache that made him look older than Salazar, even though Harry knew they were supposed to be twins. However, for all his height Godric was not very physically impressive; his shoulders were not especially broad, nor his arms particularly muscular. His nose was stained as red as his robes from drink – a similarity to Vernon – and when they got close Harry could see he was grinning like a loon.

"Salazar! There you are! How are you how are you!" His voice was slightly high for a man of 23, but not overly so. "It's wonderful to be back. Is that the child Helga found? He looks just like you did when we were kids you know; lucky, that. If he looked like _father_... well, that's a look we're all lucky to lack. I saw him yesterday, his first time meeting me, but he says he's heard of my exploits. My _exploits_!" His voice was laced with glee, and he slapped his twin on back. Harry could just make out their faces, and saw that they could be nothing _but_ brothers.

"Godric," Salazar nodded to his brother. "This is the boy, yes. I expect you met Rowena or Helga earlier?"

"Not at all; one of the elves said they were fighting over breakfast, so I wouldn't expect to see them 'til supper at the earliest, if we see them again today at all. Both already called to have lunch in their classrooms. I expect Helga is brewing some terrible poison and Rowena concocting some experimental ward to threaten each other with," Godric replied flippantly. "Actually, it was father who mentioned the boy – Harry, I believe?" Godric shrugged, continuing his diatribe. "No, though they are the reason I sought you out. As they're in fits I can't ask anyone else."

"Ask me what?"

"When I saw Father, he said we would be buffing up the castle's security before his next visit, which he said will be before Lughnasa, presumably because during the school year there will be another uprising of the Sidhe and we can't really spare the time when students are here. So I need to tweak the ward stones – and yes, I can do that without Rowena's help – so I have to go to the Catacombs, and you _know_ how She is." Harry thought it strange that 'she' sounded like it was a name. "She won't listen to me."

"If you hadn't dropped one of her eggs –" Salazar had a stern tone that Harry had yet to hear from the man.

"I know, I know!" Godric waved his hands frantically. "But if I want to set the wards I need to get into the catacombs, and She's sweet enough on you that she'll tolerate me well enough. Father told me exactly what to do – in that way of his where he seems like he hasn't actually said anything, you know – and of the two of us –" he stopped and shrugged before saying anything more.

Harry was lost in the conversation, but he wasn't unused to adults talking about things he didn't understand and not explaining.

"You can bring the boy, too, if you like," Godric continued, as if he hadn't stopped at all. Harry had the strangest feeling that Godric wanted him to go with them to the 'catacombs', whatever those were. "With you there She would never hurt him. And, if She tried, I can always protect him well enough. _Please_ Salazar? I really want to get this done and I have to inundate a muggleborn boy in a few days before he goes to Avalon and that will probably be when Father comes."

"Alright, alright, but not until after lunch," Salazar allowed. "I broke my fast at dawn and want some sort of nourishment if we're to be down there for hours on end. Harry has been most helpful today and requires the same; our sister's interrupted his meal." He sounded rather annoyed by this.

Godric nodded immediately and snapped his fingers. A loud "crack" not unlike a car backfiring heralded the arrival of a small, wrinkly person with humongous ears, eyes as big as Harry's fists, and a nose that rather resembled a Tyconderoga pencil in shape. Its skin had a slight gray-green cast to it.

Of course, this was all observed _after_ Harry calmed down enough to stop hiding behind Salazar and released the gray robes from his vice-like grip. He realized this was likely the same little person he saw at breakfast with Helga.

"Coby, lunch for three," Godric ordered, barely even looking at the person. "I'll take mine with some of the elf-wine." This was the least Harry had heard Godric say at once in all the two minutes since their meeting.

"Moon calf's milk for the boy and ale (1) for me," Salazar tacked on. Harry sometimes got sick from milk, since he didn't have it very often, but he didn't protest. It was good for him, his teachers had told him, until Petunia told the school he was lactose intolerant. His aunt told the school a lot of things that weren't true.

The little person – Coby – popped away with another car-backfiring sound.

When Harry released Salazar's robes once more, they sat at the same table from the morning. As before, Harry sat tentatively on the edge of the seat, but with a bit more confidence than at the morning meal with Helga and Rowena.

"Any hint yet as to what his challenge will be?" Godric asked as he sat indelicately in his seat. "I still remember mine – a life changing experience, to be sure! I was sent to a tomb somewhere – Egypt, I suppose, since there were mummies – and didn't get back until I bested the sphinx that guarded the Pharaoh's treasure." He took something shiny from his waist and looked at it admiringly before slinging it – belt and all – on the back of the chair. Harry realized, rather belatedly, that it was a sword with a gold hilt and (when he squinted a little) an egg-sized ruby set into the butt end. "It's what made my interest in fighting I think, and I couldn't have convinced the goblins to make me a sword if I hadn't taken that treasure."

"I don't expect you could," Salazar agreed. Harry half-thought the younger twin was mocking his elder – in a friendly way of course – but forgot it when he nearly jumped out of his seat at the arrival of Coby.

When the little person vanished, Harry felt a mite brave and turned to Salazar. The gray-clad man was the one Harry was most comfortable because he wasn't overwhelming like Rowena, and he was stern without being mean like Helga, so perhaps it was less brave than if he had spoken up to Godric, but he still asked, "What did you do?"

Salazar frowned (or Harry thought he did, but it was hard to tell without his glasses) but replied all the same. "Magic took me to a muggle community near Londinium. Not long after my arrival, I stumbled across a little girl about to be bitten by a snake in the village square. I made it stop, but in the process I revealed myself as a wizard to the entire village; both the girl and I were about to be burned at the stake when the magic took me back to Avalon."

There was silence. Harry had never heard of witch burning, or Londinium, and so did not know that these were not the way of his own time.

"And then?" the child quietly inquired.

"The magic left me," Salazar leaned back in his seat slightly and drank some of his ale before continuing. "I was not thoughtful, and though I completed the task of saving the little girl, I did so in a careless manner that almost got us both killed. I later found out that when I vanished without her, the girl was considered a victim of my witchcraft rather than a collaborator." He paused again, drank a little more, and finished with, "I have since made up for my faults."

Harry and Salazar were both silent for the remainder of the meal. Harry, because he had used up his quot of bravery for the next week, and Salazar because it was his nature to be quiet.

Godric spoke enough for ten people anyway; Harry found the man to be loud and good humored.

* * *

When Harry was led to a small room on the second floor of the castle, he was a little confused. Weren't catacombs supposed to be downstairs? And yet they had bypassed the stairs going down – Godric said they led to the dungeons, which were off limits to students excluding discipline – and gone _up_ two flights of stairs before coming to the small room. There was a big stone on the wall that didn't quite fit with the rest, and Godric walked up to it and told it to "open".

It seemed rather silly to Harry, but he was hardly a wizard. The stone was still a moment before it vanished altogether. Godric slipped through the space and with a whoop vanished. By the sound of his voice, Harry assumed he was going down.

Salazar gave Harry a strange look for a moment before ushering the child to follow him, and Harry did obediently. Salazar disappeared into the hole rather quieter than his brother, and Harry discovered it was a steep slide; he hadn't been on slides much, but he liked this one. It was the fact that it disappeared into darkness that made his nervous.

But... Godric had said he could protect Harry, and the boy would trust him.

No matter how much he wanted to avoid his uncle's wrath, Harry still followed rather than scarpering when he had the chance.

After what must have been a full minute going swiftly down, Harry's eyelids – for his eyes had closed during the journey – were flooded red with light and he made a sort of squeaking noise when his body collided with something soft. He rolled a few times on it before hitting something rather more solid.

His eyes then opened, and Harry found himself on a giant pillow with his side pressed against the lower legs of a rather amused looking Godric. The buff-haired man laughed when Harry rolled quickly away and rolled off the pillow to stand beside his twin, who was already on his feet and not facing the pillow or Harry. Tentatively, Harry rolled towards the edge of the pillow and found he was only just tall enough to place his feet on the floor without needing to fall of the object first.

There was some small amount of squabbling that Harry didn't pay much mind to. He was trying to see what was around him, but found it as large as the Great Hall and a good deal darker as it was distinctly lacking the glass ceiling. Oh well, he knew it was very big and that was all he need to know.

"Come along, don't want you getting lost down here," Salazar admonished, and Harry quickly abandoned his futile attempt at scanning the surroundings. "Keep close and follow any directions I give you."

Harry nodded and quickly flowed after the twins. Salazar was in the lead – Godric didn't seem too happy with this, but he was accepting of it – and Harry kept close but not underfoot. The floors were rough hewn, but Harry had no trouble trotting along beside the elder without tripping. There were no free stones or clutter, only the stone floors and the light produced by Godric's stick – wand.

After some minutes of quiet – or as quiet as it got with Godric filling the air with one-side small talk – they happened upon a great door with large snakes twining around each other as a strange lock. Harry looked at the door, wondering what sort of magic would open it.

He was slightly disappointed when Salazar simply said "open" and the door opened. That wasn't much of a lock, if it opened to anyone who asked. The Dursleys would certainly not employ whoever had made such a useless lock, and Harry would use a lock like that if he had anything he wanted to keep safe. Alright, so the secret passage was in a strange place and hard to find, but when people got frustrated he knew they tended to yell at inanimate objects, and telling a door to open wasn't a very creative way to unlock it.

Beyond the door of the snakes was a room even greater than the one from before, with a smoother floor and torches set in the wall that lit as the door opened. There were great stone things – Harry assumed they were statues – and at the end Harry could tell that it was not a wall but another statue. As they approached, Harry realized the floor was wet, and found that on the sides of the walkway were shallow pools – perhaps the statues on the sides of the room were actually fountains? He didn't know, but thought it was possible. If only he had his glasses!

Eventually they reached the end, and Harry found the great not-wall was a carving of a rather ugly man with a large brow, deepset eyes, and a wide face. His nose was hooked and his hair was carved in clumps that may or may not have been reality.

"Why did we keep this ugly thing?" Godric winced as he looked up at it. "Father can't be so vain as to have had it done himself, yet here it is! Couldn't we have replaced it? I'd rather a woman if-"

"It's precisely because you would prefer a woman that we keep father's statue," Salazar scoffed, though Harry didn't understand. "Better to have father's brutish face guarding the ward stones than some comely girl. Now, where is She?"

There was an answer from behind the statue, "I'm stuck."

Harry wondered who was speaking – presumably the person called "She" – and followed after Salazar and Godric as they came closer to the statue.

"She, I would think you had learned better than to stick yourself," Salazar admonished. He spoke as he did to Harry. "When I let you out, keep your eyes shut please. There is a child with us. Open."

The mouth of the statue moved, and out plopped something long and thin. It was black and acid green, but Harry couldn't see what it was. It slithered up quickly, and Harry found it was a snake, jet black for the most part, with a crown of spiky scales colored a rather vicious green that Harry couldn't help but think of the poisonous frogs that were bright colors.

"What do you need me for, Salazar? And what does the egg killer want?" The voice of She escaped the serpent, and Harry jumped. He couldn't help but squawk.

"That snake just talked!"

Maybe he should have been a little more understanding. After all, he had seen Coby – who, according to the twins, was a house-elf, not a 'person' and should not be treated as such – and heard about strange creatures. But… snakes that talked? That was more than a little strange. Harry had never met a snake before, but he knew they didn't _talk_.

The snake turned to him, eyes still closed. "The child speaks?"

Harry looked up at Salazar, hoping for an explanation, but the man was looking at him with his mouth agape. How was Salazar surprised though? He must have known She was a snake and could talk, so… maybe all snakes talked and Harry just hadn't known that because it wasn't considered normal by the Dursleys? Still, that didn't seem right either, and Harry had no idea why the nice man would be surprised at Harry being surprised at a talking snake.

"Harry, what have you been hearing?" Salazar asked after a moment. "From when we entered this room, please."

Harry furrowed his brow. What did that have to do with anything? "Well, you told the door to open, and then you and Godric were talking about how ugly the statue was and Godric wants to replace it with a pretty girl and you think that that face is scarier… and then you asked where She was and She said She was stuck and you told her to close her eyes and told the statue to open and then She asked why you wanted her and called Godric an egg killer."

Godric laughed. Salazar frowned. She opened her eyes and looked curiously at Harry, tasting the air. She was probably three meters long, and think enough that Harry would have to use both hands to wrap around the biggest part of her body. Bright yellow eyes were slit in the middle, and Harry thought they rather resembled a cat.

"And you heard it all as if it was in your native tongue, I would assume," Salazar leaned more weight on one foot than the other. "Which means that either Helga botched up her translation charm to an impossible degree – unlikely though that is – or, like my siblings and I, you are a parselmouth."

"A… what?" Harry found himself confused quite a lot today, but he didn't mind that too much. Everyone seemed alright with explaining things to him, unlike the Dursleys.

"You can speak to snakes," he glanced at She before continuing. "I will explain more as Godric goes about his business. She, my brother needs to work with the ward stones and brought me for his protection. This will help with the castle's defences, just as you do, and I hope you will allow this?"

"Hm, I suppose," She murmured, looking between the three, her yellow eyes again landing on Harry. "He must be a real speaker, if he isn't dead."

She slithered off and started climbing up the statue again, leaving Godric to dash off to a corner of the room where a boulder sat and Salazar to look at Harry curiously once more. The child shifted, uncomfortable under the gaze.

"Parseltongue is a rare gift of magic," Salazar explained finally. "It is inherited, passed from father to child and _only_ from father to child. Our father, the Merlin Taliesin, is a parselmouth, which his received from his father and his father before him. My brother and sisters inherited that gift, as did I."

Harry frowned. "But… that means my dad was a… a that," he didn't want to try saying the word because it sounded difficult, "so he would have to be a wizard, right?"

"Or descended patrilinealy from one," Salazar added. "But given how rare the gift is, it is unlikely he wasn't a wizard. And doubly unlikely that my father will not have heard of him. Perhaps if my father visits before you leave we may ask him. Do you know his name?"

It took a moment, but Harry answered, "I don't know. Maybe I was named after him though! My middle name is James, so maybe my dad's name is James."

"Perhaps."

Salazar looked at Harry in a way that the child could not describe if he wanted to, and yet he felt warmed by it, as blurry as the look was to him.

The day was yet young, and Harry had much to go through before magic would accept or reject him.

**Author's Note: Yo :P There shouldn't be many more chapters – though it is so much longer than I intended when I thought of the idea – but I should still, y'know, write it. If I don't it's not 'cause I'm busy but 'cause I forgot/am lazy. ... And because my sister bought Final Fantasy VII for her PS3, which I haven't played since middle school when my cousin stole my copy of the game. So... yeah. I'll still get stuff done during my writing class, I promise! That was when most of this was getting done anyway. Feel free to send me a PM and tell me to get to work ^^"**

**And as a note, I'm not being inconsistent on the personalities of the various founders, just showing how they are all different from one perspective to the next (Salazar's opinion of his brother can be different from how his brother is and vice a versa) and how the legendary personalities of each that we all commonly see came to be.**

(1) You probably already know this, but for centuries ale was drunk at most every meal like water would be now. It isn't weird that Salazar would drink it when he calls his brother a drunkard.


	4. Chapter 4

Warnings: Starts with useless trivia about the number 7, fluff, mentions of mild child abuse and neglect, contains random crackpot theories that the author thought up in the space of maybe ten seconds.

Disclaimers: Harry Potter belongs to Joanne Kathleen Rowling and associates, of whom I am not one. Information on the number seven altered from what was found on Wikipedia.

Chapter 4

Rowena frowned. She was in the Great Hall, eating supper with her siblings. She had quite pointedly sat Godric between herself and the empty seat that would be Helga's if the old maid had bothered to come to dinner. Of course, it was only because Rowena knew that Helga _wouldn't_ come that she had. The fury she worked up from their fight hadn't quite worked itself down yet, especially when her sister had insinuated that she neglected her duties as a wife.

So what if she went rarely home to Sir Ravenclaw? He was just as busy as she; as a knight-wizard of 49, he was high ranked in Avalon's extended ranks and had to take his job seriously to protect any magical persons in Londinium, as Rowena had to take seriously her duties of preparing and protecting the precious children of the wizarding world. If he would send her a missive stating he wanted her home to bear him a son, she would certainly make time to do so, and extort a fertility potion from her sister beforehand for surety.

It wasn't her fault Sir Ravenclaw had never called her to bed in their 6 years of marriage. Or, indeed, called her anywhere but to be on his arm when there was a gathering for a festival day at Avalon, as he would soon for Lughnasa if he did not forego as he had at Samhain the year prior.

This, however, was not why she was frowning _now_.

Apparently, Godric had updated the wards that afternoon and roped Salazar into keeping She calm. She had no name, would not suffer to be given a human appellation, content to be referred to as only "She" and "The Snake" – but never The Serpent, for implying she could be related to the seagoing beasts was a serious affront. She was a basilisk, a creature of great power and renown across the globe. Rowena had overseen the hatching herself, fearing that Salazar' lack of magic would put him in danger of the serpent's eyes, even if he _was_ a parselmouth, just like the rest of them. She was an important part of the castle's defenses, one that could kill attackers with a glance once called upon.

And such a defense was an unfortunate necessity. Some wizards balked at the idea of needing protection from them, but the occasional burning was always something that Rowena kept note of. Muggles were _dangerous_. And though only two of their students thus far were from muggle families... well, the reason for the lack was not the numbers, but the refusals and, often, the discovery that after they had gone to the families to request a child attend Hogwarts, the ones Avalon didn't catch first, _the child was not there a week later._

To Rowena, who loved children and found them cute, even peasant children like Harry (though, for a peasant he was really quite exceptional with his large bright eyes and delicate, almost fae-like features), it was an absolute shame.

No, She was certainly a necessity, in addition to being a spectacular source for potions ingredients - most of which were sold at a high price to fund the school - they needed her to defend the school in case some muggle King made the error of thinking they could burn down a place of magic.

And until she and Godric finished their experimentation to produce a muggle repellent, it was simply too much of a risk.

An equal risk, however, had been taken that day. They had had no way to know that Harry was a parselmouth. No way to know She would not accidentally kill the boy while Godric worked. They had risked the life of a 7 year old boy - and so rare was it that children lived to that age, between bad birthings, ailments, disasters, and everything in between! - on a whim.

_And then let She open her eyes before him!_

Oh if she could have hexed her brothers within inches of their lives she would have, but Godric's power was greater than hers, blowhard though he was, and Salazar was a slippery man. He may not have been worthy of Magic's blessing, but he was devious and could run away faster than she could catch him.

Rowena loved her brothers dearly, to be sure, but they were tiresome. Godric was more than a little self important - without his twin present he would likely be telling tales of how he single handedly made everything magically possible in history - and more bloody-minded than Rowena thought healthy to be around children, but he was kind in his way, quick to praise but when his ire was stoked it was immense.

Rowena could, though hesitantly, admit she shared this flaw.

And Salazar... well, he never _talked_. Oh he said things, he made points, but he did not converse. He didn't share his ideas with her. When Rowena and that Old Maid were on decent terms, even they could share ideas and plot together, but Salazar never allowed Rowena in his head and it was maddening. And her legilimancy was so poor that she could never find out through sneakier means, that was always Helga's territory and she just didn't _care_. That their brother was so secretive infuriated Rowena immensely.

Why, for all he ever told her, Salazar could be the father of the waif sharing their meal!

_That_ was what caused Rowena to frown.

She could be sharing the table with a relative, the child of her own half-brother, and she would have no idea because if it were the case Salazar would never tell her unless he publicly took the boy. And if the child were his, and he had no taken the child in as of yet or seen to it that the boy went to Avalon, he wouldn't unless the child passed some sort of _test_ to gain his trust.

That was just how Salazar was. He hadn't trusted Rowena until he passed one of his silly tests, she hadn't even known she was being tested until one day he barely spoke to her on her latest visit to Avalon, and the next he gave her a flower and his blessing to marry.

It was maddening.

So Rowena frowned, and she ate, and she watched.

* * *

In a similar state one seat over, Godric was mulling things over in his own way. Unlike Rowena, who just frowned disapprovingly at everything in a frightening imitation of her mother, Godric thought behind his words and boisterous tales. He was regaling the child seated on the opposite side of his sister with a tale of his latest battle, how he had been fighting a quitaped that some fool wizard-knight had had imported to a nearby town for castle defense only to discover that quintapeds attacked wizards and muggles alike.

Although they were twins, Godric and Salazar had seen each other sparingly. Salazar as a babe had been special in their father's eyes somehow, Godric never knew what made him so special but when Taliesin Merlin came to the birthing of the twins and informed their mother that, at the child's weening, the younger twin - or, as Salazar was to Merlin, his first son - would be sent directly to Avalon, she had not argued. Godric grew up running in the fields of the farm their mother worked on while Salazar was made to grow up as a quiet scholar. And it was something that, at Godric's last meeting with their father, the first time his father had ever met him, the Merlin received wholehearted thanks that he was not chosen for that.

Godric had chosen lions to symbolize the founding of his House - both in the school and his future descendants - for good reason. He wanted to run and hunt and fight and even kill if the moment was right for it. He would not have enjoyed growing up _quietly_.

So it made sense that even in thinking his tendencies were opposite his brothers. When Salazar thought he was silent. When Godric thought, he was louder than ever.

"That was when the dread beast knocked my sword away with one of its five legs and made a dash for me!" Godric's motions were broad as he gestured with a half-eaten piece of his dinner in hand. "I dove away and summoned my sword, thrusting it upward just in time as the Quintaped tried to jump upon me, and one of its legs was severed before it could skitter away."

"What he does not mention is that the beast in question was merely an adolescent, and only so large as yourself, Harry, rather than larger than he," Salazar interrupted. The child darted glances, unbelieving. Godric didn't mind the interruption, but he played along. His twin had mentioned Harry didn't eat much when focused on his food, but he had been eating steadily since Godric began speaking, so why not encourage the boy to eat more than the paltry peasant meals he was surely accustomed to?

"A quintaped in adolescence is more violent than one in adulthood," Godric defended himself. "As you yourself have told me many a time, an adolescent denied the hunt is as able to kill a nundu as it is a wizard."

Godric was far from the creatures expert his brother was, but he knew well enough how to handle dangerous ones by now. It was hard not to after apprenticing to a wizard-knight for his seven year apprenticeship.

In was after dinner, as the sun fell from the sky and painted it in blood that Rowena bid a house elf to take the child away to one of the unused student rooms for the night, and she turned upon Salazar.

If Godric didn't know she considered his squib brother the more responsible of them, he might have wondered at it.

"You took him to see She?" Gone was the near fae-like chiming voice Rowena normally put on, and in its place an angry hiss, almost parseltongue for all its lowness, could be heard. Quite good that Harry had been sent to bed then. "You took a future student of our halls, a child of but seven years, to see _She_?"

Salazar surveyed his sister, eyes held in shadow by his brow but lit by the candle between then, killing the green in them savagely. "Would you not consider that an appropriate, insurmountable task of Magic?" Salazar responded finally. "That it was not so is not debatable," he continued as Rowena opened his mouth. "But it was possible. That _that_ was no adequate task says something."

Rowena and Godric waited for more.

And they waited.

Salazar said nothing.

Godric furrowed his brow. Facing down a basilisk for one who does not know they are a parselmouth would be more than an adequate task, he should think, even for one who was, as Helga put it, "coddled" by Magic.

But the task wasn't enough.

"He'll be in worse danger before he leaves us then," Rowena said before Godric. "What could be more dangerous than She? Should I be expecting a dragon to fly through my tower on the morrow?"

"Unless danger is the wrong way," Godric countered. "Helga's task... you remember she told us about how she had to work a day in the fields of some Eastern lord, one tiny room-sized rice paddy that she had to tend to for a day? Hers wasn't a test of danger but stubbornness, hard work."

"And poor father's test of time," Salazar concurred. "I do not think he was sent to us to face a danger. Were there one to face, we would know it first, and he should never have the chance to face it. Sending a child born presumably of muggles, else at least raised by them the greater portion of his life, to three wizards who could better combat any foe than he? It is more complicated than that."

"Born of muggles..." Godric sat back in his chair and glared at the far wall. He hated muggles. Was afraid of them, as he could so easily admit. They frightened him with their war machines and constant attacks on magical persons. They were too aware of magical people, when they encountered them. And it was all too easy to be killed by muggles when you weren't watching your back.

Logically speaking, he supposed, muggles feared wizards as much or more. Very imaginative buggers, they could probably come up with ideas for more twisted, torturous applications for magic than any trained wizard would dare to dream of. Paranoia, in his opinion. Anyone who used such spells on muggles was immediately set to be hunted down by the wizard-knights of Avalon.

"Maybe Magic can't accept him until he accepts it?" Godric posited finally. "It would fit. The boy flinched at the mere mention of magic. Most muggle children at least consider the idea of magic being good at the start, at least when we visit them. If his family was killed by witches? Or the other way around?"

It was mostly idle prattle, but Salazar and Rowena both nodded along. They obviously considered it a viable idea, and it was the only one Godric had. Maybe Salazar had had the idea first and wanted someone else to voice it first - he always had been the humble sort, damn father and Avalon - but perhaps Godric had had an idea on his own that was considered good.

No one had ever dared say that Godric Gryffindor had rocks for brains. Else he wouldn't be a teacher, he supposed.

"Helga hovered him when he tripped this morning, absolutely terrified the boy," Rowena said after a moment. "He had been hiding, he must have heard unfamiliar voices, and tried to run when the bed was lifted. I know you, Salazar, are usually the one to retrieve new students, but do they ever react like that to simple _hoverring_?"

"Only a few times has any wizard-knight accompanying me through their domain ever seen fit to demonstrate in that way... but no, the children are normally delighted," Salazar stated. "'Like a fairy story' they say."

The siblings sat in silence as they finished their desserts, thinking, and at length Salazar dismissed himself wordlessly to tend his plants that needed midnight's light to grow. Godric sagged back further in his seat and eyed his young sister.

"Coby, a drink!" He called after another moment. With the child gone he was free to get better acquainted with something a bit more invigorating than lager. "Should've known the boy was trouble, looking like Salazar as he does."

Rowena only nodded with a sigh before ordering her own poison from the elf.

* * *

In her den, Helga stirred.

The potion turned a rather comely shade of cream before she added the powder in her hand, turning the liquid clearer than any crystal, with only the faintest of gray hues to it.

In her anger she had not been idle, no, that was never her way. Helga's magic had accepted her only because of her hard work and determination, and just because her sister could be so petty as to make any argument not her fault, at least Helga was aware of her own faults and could work through them. It was her drive for hard work and her determination to leave nothing unfinished that drove her to work on this potion, which happened to require the heat of roiling emotions rather than flame, and she smiled lightly at her success.

Potions, she could say without any hint of sarcasm, were wonderously confusing things. As a master in the art, she felt she had more right to say this than her neophyte students, who could barely remember to stir, let alone think to wonder at why.

This particular potion was not one with a name or use that would make one think anger would be useful in. The only other potions requiring anger were those used to make a blood feud official, something the heads of families carried upon their persons at all times but hoped to never require, or else in some rather vicious poisons hidden in old Egyptian tomes. This potion was special.

Invented by Easterners, Chinamen, it was a potion for determining ascension to a throne. Because of the patriarchal society, rather than Avalon's matriarchal, there would always be the question of whether the son of a King was his son, when it was always true who the mother was. Egyptians solved this through sons marrying their mothers or sisters. Chinese wizards instead discovered how to tell blood true.

The best translation she received of the potion's name was "Blood Truth Serum", but it sounded ridiculous to Helga, and she wasn't the only potions master who called it instead the Father's Blood.

If Helga were to take the potion, it would take the two strongest male sources of her magic and genetics. One of those would undoubtedly be her father, the Merlin Taliesin, but the next most powerful source she did not know. Her mother's family wasn't known for magical strength, and it would be nearly a thousand years until her own father's birth. It was likely she would never have heard of whatever man it was.

No, the potion was not for her, nor her siblings, who would all likely have similar results, though their mothers _had_ been stronger tan Helga's.

It was for the strange boy who, as the elves had just told her, was sleeping in a small room in Rowena's tower. Although Helga preferred to do her own work, she had needed her anger for her potion and had the elves keep her up to date on the goings on of the castle.

So she knew about the fact that the child, Harry, did not know who his parents were. So he _could_ be born of magic, as its coddling suggested.

Likewise, she knew of his encounter with She.

Helga believed in hard work above all, but even with the altercations between her and her sister, Helga wouldn't abandon family, and the boy could be just that. Perhaps descended of another child of Merlin's. It was known that the Merlin hadn't died until fifty years ago, and in his millennium of life, the Merlin had told her he had fathered five daughters and no sons until Salazar and Godric. The women at Avalon said he fathered two before her, meaning that if the boy was in his right time, he could be her cousin, and if not, he could yet be simply because of _magic._

Simply put, Helga was curious.

She bottled the concoction, readied for sale to help with funds for the school, and took down her chalice from the mantle.

It was a rather simple goblet all told, passed down in Helga's mother's family for three centuries now. Her great grandfather had found it, nearly dead, when he ventured to what the Romans, Jews, and Arabs considered holy land, the Node of the Middle East, a now-dry node of magical power that had once sustained the beginning of human life and human learning. Now a desert, the once fertile lands had enough of a magical aura still to perform the occasional miracle, and magical children born there, though rare, were often so thoroughly saturated with power that they underwent no trial.

He had found the chalice in a cave he took shelter in one night from the cold. He had cast a simple incantation to conjure water inside it, and upon drinking found himself revitalized, all wounds healed, and his complaining joints appeased.

There were few who ever learned that the family of Hufflepuff held the Holy Grail, the cup imbued with blood so saturated in magic it turned the cup itself into a Philosopher's Stone, simple wood becoming pure gold and all water that entered it a heady wine known as the elixir of life.

Helga smiled. She did not use this cup lightly. Wizards lived long enough, and her grandfather's luck was not to be used to her advantage. But the healing properties within, combined with the Father's Blood, would perhaps make the boy not so runty and help fulfill the potential of his blood in the future. Even she could tell something had interfered with his development. Perhaps even too stern a hand.

Bearing a phial of Father's Blood and her chalice hidden in her cloak, Helga went to the boy's chambers and knocked but thrice before entering.

The boy, the elves had told her, had not yet entered his bed. They had not told her he was staring at it in wide-eyed fascination, as if he had never seen a bed so grand. Which, in fairness, she supposed he likely had not unless his caretakers were servants to a lord.

"Boy," Helga said only that one word, and the boy wheeled about. "Have a drink of this, then to sleep." She pulled out the cup, pouring the contents of her phial within, and presented it to him, the order obeyed soundlessly and without question. If he kept drinking and eating everything told without questioning what it was, he was going to be poisoned one of these days.

There was instantly color that had not been there before, and the boy thanked her quietly before crawling atop the large feather bed. Helga bid him sleep well, her mind twisting around itself.

As expected, two names had curled out of his mouth when he finished the drought. One was written in roman lettering and gone before she could decipher it, but the second name was very _very_ clear in her mind's eye.

Salazar Slytherin.

**Author's Note: Sorry this took 2 years, but hopefully I'm back on now. I actually tried writing this a lot of times... then a few days ago I deleted the entire chapter, started anew, and found myself able to write it. Which I only did because my boyfriend had my laptop and I had nothing to do. Fancy that.**

**Spring Break, but don't expect another of these for a month or more as I have Sakuracon coming up soon, and college classes and what not. Hopefully I will have this story completed before the start of summer.**

**Oh, and the Holy Grail thing? Another idea that came from me randomly in high school. I have twice attempted writing the story that would have used it, and have since decided that, y'know what? All those ideas I had for that other founder fic, if I want to, I will use here because that one will never be written. Ever.**

**Samsara and The Green World should each be updated soon. They are each about half through their next chapters anyway.**


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